A Cold Creek Noel (The Cowboys of Cold Creek) (11 page)

* * *

He sensed a story here.

Something was up with the Bowmans when it came to Christmas. He
noticed that while Laura and the children were singing merrily away, Caidy’s
brothers seemed as reluctant as she to join in. The police chief and fire chief
would occasionally sing a few lines and Caidy hummed here and there, but none of
them could be called enthusiastic participants in this little sing-along.

At random moments over the evening he had picked up a pensive,
almost sad mood threading through their family.

He thought of that beautiful work of art in the dining room,
the vibrant colors and the intense passion behind it, and then the way all the
Bowmans shut down as if somebody had yanked a window screen closed when he had
asked about the artist.

Their mother. What happened to her? And the father was
obviously gone too. He was intensely curious but didn’t know how to ask.

The three-quarter moon peeked behind a cloud, and in the pale
moonlight she was almost breathtakingly lovely, with those delicate features and
that soft, very kissable mouth.

That kiss hadn’t been far from his mind all day, probably
because he still didn’t quite understand what had happened. He wasn’t the kind
of man to steal a kiss from a beautiful woman, especially not at the spur of the
moment like that. But he hadn’t been able to resist her. She had looked so sweet
and lovely there in her kitchen, worry for her ailing dog still a shadow in her
eyes.

Holding her in his arms, he had desired her, of course, but had
also been aware of something else tangled with the hunger, a completely
unexpected tenderness. He sensed she used her prickly edges as a defense against
the world, keeping away potential threats before they could get too close.

He remembered her cutting words to her brothers’ wives and that
awkward moment when he had walked into the kitchen just in time to hear her call
him arrogant and rude.

Why hadn’t he just slipped out of the kitchen again without any
of the women suspecting he might have overheard? He should have. It would have
been the polite thing to do, but some demon had prompted him to push her, to let
her know he wasn’t about to be dismissed so easily.

She had apologized for it, said she hadn’t meant any of her
words. So why had she said them?

He made her nervous. He had observed at dinner that she was
warm and friendly to everyone else, but she basically ignored him and had been
abrupt in their few interactions. It was an odd position in which to find
himself and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it—just as he didn’t know how to
deal with his own conflicted reaction to her.

One moment he wanted to retreat into his safe world as a
widower and single father. The next, she forcibly reminded him that underneath
those roles, he was still a man.

Brooke had been gone for two years. He would always grieve for
his wife, for the good times they had shared and the children she had loved and
raised so well. He had become, if not complacent in his grief, at least
comfortable with it. This move to Idaho seemed to have shaken everything. When
he agreed to take the job, he intended to create a new life for the children,
away from influences he considered harmful. He never expected to find himself so
drawn to a lovely woman with secrets and sadness in her eyes.

Through the rest of the sleigh ride, though he tried to focus
on the scenery and the enjoyment his children were having, he couldn’t seem to
stop watching Caidy. She was amazing, actually, keeping her attention focused on
entertaining the very cute niece on her lap and making sure none of the gaggle
of preadolescent girls suddenly fell out of the wagon. She managed all of those
tasks with deft skill.

She obviously loved children and she was very good with them.
Why didn’t she have a husband and a wagonload of children herself?

None of his business, he reminded himself. Her dog was his
patient and he was currently a temporary tenant at her ranch, but that was the
extent of their relationship. He would be foolish to go looking for more. That
didn’t stop him from being intensely aware of her as the wagon jostled his
shoulder against hers every time Ridge hit a rut.

“Brrr. I’m cold,” Maya said, snuggling deeper into Caidy’s
lap.

“So am I,” she answered. “But look. Ridge is taking us home
now.”

Ben looked around. Sure enough, her brother had perfect timing.
Just as the enthusiasm began to wane and the children started to complain of the
cold, Ben realized the big, beautiful draft horses were trudging under the sign
announcing the entrance to the River Bow Ranch.

“No more horsies?” Maya asked.

“Not today, little bug.” Taft held his arms out and his
stepdaughter lunged into them. “We’ll come back and go for another ride sometime
soon, though, I promise.”

“She’s a huge fan of our horses,” Caidy said with a fond smile
for the girl. “Especially the big ones for some odd reason.”

Instead of heading toward the ranch house, Caidy’s brother
turned the horses down the little lane that led to the house he was renting. The
wagon pulled up in front.

“Look at that. Curb service for you,” Caidy said. She finally
met his gaze with a tentative smile. He was aware of an unsettling urge to stand
here in the cold, staring into those striking green eyes for an hour or two. He
managed a brief smile in return, then turned his attention to climbing out of
the wagon and gathering his kids.

“Let’s go. Jack, Ava.”

“I don’t want to get off! Why does everyone else get to keep
riding?” Jack had that tremor in his voice that signaled an impending
five-year-old tantrum.

“Only for another minute or two,” Ridge promised. “We’re just
heading back to the house and then the ride will be done. The horses are tired
and need their beds.”

“So do you, kiddo,” Ben said. “Come on.”

To Ben’s relief, Jack complied, jumping down into his arms. Ava
clearly wanted to stay with the other girls but she finally waved to them all.
“See you tomorrow on the bus,” she said to Destry.

“Great. I’ll bring that book we were talking about.”

“Okay. Don’t forget.”

Ava waved again and jumped down without his help.

“Thanks for letting us tag along,” he said to the wagon in
general, though he meant his words for Caidy. “Ava and Jack had a blast.”

“What about you?” she asked.

He didn’t know her well enough yet to interpret her moods. All
he knew was that she looked remarkably pretty in the moonlight, with her eyes
sparkling and her cheeks—and the very tip of her nose—rosy.

“I enjoyed it,” he answered. He was a little surprised to
realize it was true. He hadn’t found all that many things enjoyable since his
wife died. Who would have expected he would enjoy a hayride with a bunch of
giggly girls and Caidy and her forbidding brothers, who would probably have
thrown him off the wagon if they had known about that late-night kiss—and about
how very much he wanted to repeat the experience?

“I especially enjoyed the peppermint hot cocoa.”

She looked pleased. “I’m glad. Peppermint is my favorite
too.”

“Good night.”

He waved and carried Jack into the foreman’s cottage, wondering
what the hell he was going to do about Caidy Bowman. She was an intriguing
mystery, a jumble full of prickles and sweetness, vinegar and sugar, and he was
far more fascinated by her than he had any right to be.

Chapter Ten

A
fter the sleigh ride, Caidy made it a
point for the next few days to stay as far as possible from the foreman’s house.
She had no reason to visit. Why would she? Ben and the children and Mrs.
Michaels were perfectly settled and didn’t need help with anything.

If she stood at her bedroom window, looking out at the night
and the sparkling lights nestled among the trees, well, that was her own
business. She told herself she was only enjoying the peace and serenity of these
quiet December nights, but that didn’t completely explain away the restlessness
that seemed to ache inside her.

It certainly had nothing to do with a certain dark-haired man
and the jittery butterflies he sent dancing around inside her.

She couldn’t hope to avoid him forever, though. On Wednesday,
less than a week before Christmas, she woke from tangled dreams with an odd
sense of trepidation.

The vague sense of unease dogged her heels like a blurred
shadow as she headed out to the barn with a still-sleepy Destry to feed and
water the horses and take care of the rest of their chores.

She couldn’t figure it out until they finished in the barn and
headed back to the welcoming warmth of the house for breakfast before the school
bus came. When they walked into the kitchen, they were greeted by a happy bark
from the crate she had returned to the corner and she suddenly remembered.

This was the day she had to take Luke back to the veterinarian
to have his wound checked and his stitches removed. She stopped stock-still in
the kitchen, trepidation pressing down on her. Drat. She couldn’t avoid the man
forever, she supposed. A few more days would be nice, though. Was it too late to
make an appointment with the vet in Idaho Falls?

“What’s wrong?” Destry asked. “Your face looks funny. Did you
see a mouse?”

She raised an eyebrow. “In my kitchen? Are you kidding me? I
better not. No. I just remembered something...unpleasant.”

“Reverend Johnson said in Sunday school that the best way to
get rid of bad thoughts is to replace them by thinking about something
good.”

The girl measured dry oatmeal into her bowl and reached for the
teakettle Caidy always turned on before they headed out to the barn. “I’ve been
trying to do that whenever I think about my mom,” she said casually.

Thoughts of Ben flew out the window as she stared at her niece.
Destry
never
talked about her mother. In recent
memory, Caidy could only recall a handful of times when Melinda’s name even came
up. Destry was so sweet and even-tempered, and Ridge was such an attentive
father, she had just assumed the girl had adjusted to losing her mother, but she
supposed no child ever completely recovered from that loss, whether she was
three at the time or sixteen.

“Does that happen often?” she asked carefully. She didn’t want
to cut off the line of dialogue if Destry wanted to open up. “Thinking about
your mother, I mean?”

Destry shrugged and added an extra spoonful of brown sugar to
her oatmeal. Caidy decided to let it slide for once. “Not really. I can hardly
remember her, you know? But I still wonder about her, especially at Christmas. I
don’t even know if she’s dead or alive. Gabi at least knows her mom is
alive—she’s just being a big jerk.”

Jerk
was a kind word for the mother
of both Gabi and Becca. She was a first-class bitch, selfish and irresponsible,
who had given both of her daughters childhoods filled with uncertainty and
turmoil.

“Have you asked your dad about...your mother?”

“No. He doesn’t like to talk about her much.” Destry paused, a
spoonful of steaming oatmeal halfway between the bowl and her mouth. “I really
don’t remember much about her. I was so little when she left. She wasn’t very
nice, was she?”

Another kind phrase. Melinda showed up in a thesaurus as the
antonym to nice. She had fooled them all in the beginning, especially Ridge. She
had seemed sweet and rather needy and hopelessly in love with him, but time—or
perhaps her own natural temperament—had showed a different side of her. By the
time she finally left River Bow, just about all of them had been relieved to see
her go.

“She was...troubled.” Caidy picked through her words with
caution. “I don’t think she had a very happy life when she was your age.
Sometimes those bad things in the past can make it tough for a person to see all
the good things they have now. I’m afraid that was your mother’s problem.”

Destry appeared to ponder that as she took another spoonful of
oatmeal. “It stinks, doesn’t it?” she said quietly after a long moment. “I don’t
think I could ever leave my kid, no matter what.”

Her heart ached for this girl and for inexplicable truths.
“Neither could I. And yes, you’re right. It does stink. She made some poor
choices. Unfortunately, you’ve had to suffer for those. But you need to look at
the good things you have. Your dad didn’t go anywhere. He loves you more than
anything and he’s been here the whole time showing you that. I’m here and the
twins and now their families. You have lots and lots of people who love you,
Des. If your mom couldn’t see how wonderful you are, that’s her problem—not
yours. Don’t ever forget that.”

“I know. I remember. Most of the time anyway.”

Caidy leaned over and hugged her niece. Des rested her head on
her shoulder for just a moment before she returned to her breakfast with her
usual equanimity.

Caidy wasn’t the girl’s mother, but she thought she was doing a
pretty good job as a surrogate. Worlds better than Melinda would have done, if
Caidy did say so herself.

After Destry finished breakfast and helped her clean up the
dishes, Caidy had just enough time to spare to run her the quarter mile from the
house to the bus stop.

“Ava and Jack aren’t here,” her niece fretted. “Do you think
they forgot what time the bus comes? Maybe we should have picked them up.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Michaels knows what time the bus comes,” she
answered. “They’ve been here the past few days in plenty of time, haven’t they?
Maybe they just caught a ride with their father today.”

“Maybe,” Destry said, though she still looked worried.

Caidy could have given Des a ride into town this morning on her
way to the vet, she realized. She hadn’t even thought about that until right
now—just as the school bus lumbered over the hill and stopped in front of them
with a screech of air brakes.

After Destry climbed on the bus and Caidy waved her off, she
hurried back to the house and carried the dog crate out to the ranch’s Suburban,
then returned for the dog, who was moving around much more comfortably these
days.

“Luke, buddy, you’re not making things easy on me. If not for
you, I could pretend the man doesn’t exist.”

The dog tilted his head and gazed at her with an expression
that looked almost apologetic. She laughed a little and hooked up his leash
before leading him carefully out to the Suburban, where she lifted him carefully
into the crate.

Maybe Ridge could take him into the vet for her.

The fleeting thought was far too tempting. As much as she
wanted to ask him for the favor, she knew she couldn’t. This was all part of her
ongoing effort to prove to herself she wasn’t a complete coward.

For a brief instant as she slid behind the wheel, a random
image flitted through her memory—cowering under that shelf in the pantry, gazing
at the ribbon of light streaming in under the door and listening to the squelchy
sounds of her mother’s breathing.

She pushed away the memories.

Oh, how she loathed Christmas.

She was in a lousy mood when she pulled up in front of the vet
clinic, a combination of her worry over Destry missing her mother and missing
her
own
mother, not to mention her reluctance to
walk inside that building and face Ben again after all the awkwardness between
them.

This was ridiculous. She frowned at herself. She was tough
enough to go on roundup every year to get their cattle from the high mountain
grazing allotment. She helped Ridge with branding and with breaking new horses
and even with castrating steers.

Surely she was tough enough to endure a fifteen-minute checkup
with the veterinarian, no matter how sexy the dratted man was.

With that resolve firmly in mind, she moved around to the back
of the Suburban with Luke’s leash. Border collies were ferociously smart,
though, and he clearly was even more reluctant than she to go inside the
building. He fought the leash, wriggling his head this way and that and trying
to scramble as far back as he could into the crate.

She imagined this building represented discomfort and fear to
him. She could completely understand that, but that didn’t change the fact that
he would have to suck it up and go inside anyway.

If she did, he did.

“Come on, Luke. Easy now. There’s a boy. Come on.”

“Problem?”

Her heart kicked up a beat at the familiar voice. She turned
with an air of trepidation and there he was in all his gorgeousness. A flood of
heat washed over her, seeping into all the cold corners.

“You’ve got a reluctant patient here.”
And
his reluctant person.

“A common problem in my line of work. I saw you from the window
and thought it might be something like that.”

“I didn’t want to yank him out for fear of hurting
something.”

He gestured to the crate. “May I?”

“Of course.”

She moved out of the way and he stepped forward, leaning down
to the opening of the crate. She tried not to notice the way the morning
sunshine gleamed in his dark hair or the breadth of those shoulders under his
blue scrubs.

She was beginning to find it extremely unfair that the only man
to rev her engine in, well, ever, was somebody who was obviously not interested
in a relationship. At least with her.

“Hey there, Luke. How’s my bud?” He spoke in a low, calm voice
that sent shivers down her spine. If he ever turned that voice on
her,
she would turn into a quivery mass of
hormones.

“You want to come inside? There’s a good boy. Come on. Yeah.
Nothing to worry about here.”

As she watched, Luke surrendered to the spell of that gentle
voice and stood docile while Ben hooked on the leash and carefully lifted the
dog down to the snowy ground.

“He’s moving well. That’s a good sign.”

Luke promptly lifted a leg against the tire of the Suburban,
just in case any other creatures around wondered to whom it might belong. Ben
didn’t seem fazed. No doubt that also was a natural occurrence in his line of
work.

After Luke finished, Ben led them to the side door she had used
so many times when she worked for Doc Harris. “Let’s just head straight to the
exam room. I had a break between patients this morning and I’m all ready for
you. We can take care of the paperwork afterward.”

He closed the door and she immediately wondered how such an
ordinary act could completely deplete all available oxygen. Being alone with him
in this enclosed space left her breathless, off balance and painfully aware of
him.

She sank into a chair while he started his exam of the dog. The
whole time she tried to ignore that low, calming voice and his easy, comfortable
manner with the animal, focusing instead on her mental to-do list before
Christmas Eve, which was in less than a week.

“Everything looks good,” Ben finally said. “He’s progressing
much more quickly than I expected.”

“Great news. Thank you.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to leave the stitches in
for a few more days. I’ll try to stop by over the holidays to remove them.”

“I don’t want you to go to so much trouble. I can probably
remove them. I’ve done it before.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You
have
had
experience at this.”

She shrugged. “Most everybody who grows up on a ranch gets
basic veterinary experience. It’s part of the life. I took it a little further
when I worked with Doc Harris, that’s all.”

“If you ever want another job, I could use an experienced
tech.”

Oh, wouldn’t that be a disaster? She couldn’t think straight
around the man. She could only imagine what sort of mess she could create trying
to help him in a professional capacity.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Actually, I do need a favor. Advice, really. You know just
about everybody in town, don’t you?”

“Most of them. We’ve had some new people move in lately but I’m
sure I’ll get around to meeting them.”

“Do you know any after-school babysitters?”

“Is something wrong with Mrs. Michaels?” she asked, concerned
all over again about the children not making it to the bus stop that
morning.

His sigh was heavy. “No. Not with her, but she has a married
daughter in California who just had a baby.”

“Oh, that’s great. I remember you mentioned her daughter was
expecting.”

“She wasn’t due for another month, but apparently she went into
premature labor yesterday and had the baby this morning. The baby is in the
newborn ICU. Anne wants to be there, which I completely get. She’s trying to
make arrangements to fly out today so she can be there when her daughter comes
home from the hospital, and then she plans to stay through the holidays.”

“Understandable.”

“I know. I do understand, believe me. It just makes
my
life a little more complicated right now, at least
temporarily. The children can always come here after school. I don’t mind having
them. But according to Ava, hanging out at the clinic is ‘totally boring.’ Plus
Jack can usually find trouble wherever he goes, a skill that sometimes can be a
little inconvenient at a clinic filled with ailing animals.”

“I can see where that might pose a problem.”

“I need to find someone for this Saturday at least. We have
clinic appointments all day because of our shortened holiday hours next week and
I don’t feel right about sticking them here for ten hours.”